Sharpie dressed men - and women

"Slade Alive! was the biggest selling album in Australia since Sgt. Pepper’s. Here Slade were embraced by an existing Aussie subculture called the sharpies, a Down Under mutant of skinheads.  Sharpies had their own uniquely odd style of dancing and a look that merged skin with glitter plus quirky local variations. High-waist denim trousers, platform boots, a torso-hugging cardigan worn a couple of sizes too tight – the sharpie style was a harder, meaner version of the look that the Bay City Rollers would adopt in a year or two. But the hair style was something else: cropped at the front and on top, but mullet-like with rat-tail wisps straggling over the back collar.  In addition to Slade, Sharpies loved other stompy glitter performers like Suzi Quatro but they also rallied to local acts purveying basic bluesy boogie such Lobby Loyde & the Coloured Balls."  - from S+A

Call it the Bogan Boogie...

At 1.12 below you can see sharpies taking over the stage at a Slade concert

More on the sharpies by Bruce Milne at Perfect Sound Forever

"The Sharpie movement was a short-lived youth subculture that seemed to explode out of nowhere, in Melbourne, Australia, in late '72. I can still remember the moment when I first noticed the tougher kids at my school turning up in strange clothes and haircuts. It seemed that within a matter of weeks Sharpies were everywhere.

"My most vivid memory was, as a longhaired 16 year old, going to the Sunbury '74 rock festival in a kaftan... "The festival was not quite the three days of peace, love and music I had been led to believe it would be. It was dust, scorching heat, no toilets to speak of and a lot of drunk, aggressive people.,,, 

"It was the haircuts and clothes that defined Sharpies. Though there were plenty of variations and permutations, the basic look (for boys and girls) was short hair, with longs wisps at the back, flared, high-waisted pants or jeans and a tight-fitted, striped cardigan....

"Largely, Sharpies were just bored, working-class kids from outer suburbs (that had sprung up too quickly, and with too few decent facilities and the needed infrastructure) hanging together and looking for things to do in a rapidly expanding city that was renown for its boring conservatism....

 

:Sharpies were very territorial. They named their gangs after the suburb (Broadmeadows -"The Broady Boys," Jordanville – "The Jordy Boys"), part of the suburb ("The South Blackburn Sharps"), or even the street they came from. Presumably because they were too broke or too young to own cars, they seemed to live half their lives on the trains and train stations around Melbourne. It made for some very scary travelling.

"Bowling alleys and pinball parlors were another place you could always count on running into a contingent.

"Before long, Sharpies could be found in every major city, though Melbourne was always Mecca. You couldn't find the right clothes in other places. The weather probably had a lot to do with it, too. Melbourne is the only major city in the country that isn't warm almost all year long. Walking around any other city in a tight, woollen cardigan would have taken a lot of commitment.

"I've since read that Sharpies evolved out of Sharps – sorta mod dressing kids in the late 60s who didn't go in for the whole cheese-cloth and sandals hippy thing.... 

"The boys' haircuts were short all over with styled (and often bleached) strands ("rat tails") hanging down the back. The girls' haircuts were often similar, though they tended to have their hair a bit longer. Red dye seemed to be very popular, too. Whenever I see the cover of Bowie's Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs or (especially) Pinups, I think of Sharpie girls.

"The most important item of Sharpie clothing was the "Conny," a super tight, ribbed and collared cardigan. They came in a variety of colors, with stripes of a clashing colour, and they usually had a silly little buttoned belt on the back (similar to what you might find on an old waist coat). ...

"Under the connys, a Crestknit short-sleeved shirt, with a small collar and a 3-button neck was go. Or a T-shirt. It was really hard to find T-shirts with cool designs or band logos on them in the early '70's. But almost every shopping mall had a small booth where you could take a t-shirt and have flock (velvety) block letters glued on it. The organised Sharpie gangs always had t-shirts with their gang's name done in these.... 

"Jeans were almost mandatory. For boys, they had to be tight Lees or Levis. If you had the money, or you were really dressing up, ridiculous Staggers jeans were the go. They had a really tight seam up the crotch that split (and highlighted) your balls. They must have been painful to wear. They often had extreme flared legs..../ 

"A lot of guys also wore chequered flared pants that (I'm guessing) were inspired by Noddy Holder's (of Slade) stage wear.

"Girls had more variety but the most popular jeans were really high waisted with wide flared (loon) legs that often covered the tops of their platform shoes. Denim miniskirts were also popular. Worn with colored tights and/or striped socks....

"Big platform boots were standard for boys. They were often two-coloured, in much the same way as a sunburst guitar is. They had a heavy, high heel and an exaggerated rounded toe, or a blunt, squared toe.....

"Girls wore platform shoes that had a solid cork base. As high as possible.

"The height of the shoes meant that Sharpies walked in a sort of Herman Munster-ish way."

"Sharpie guys were the first males I ever saw with earrings, usually just one, small ring. Sharpie girls had heavily plucked eyebrows and exaggerated eye make up in terrible (powder-blue, orange, ugh!) colours."

"The Sharpies loved their music tough, loud and simple. Suzi Quatro, Sweet, Sensational Alex Harvey Band, T-Rex, Gary Glitter and Bowie (as long as it was songs like "Rebel Rebel" or "Jean Genie"). But the most popular overseas group was Slade. They were probably bigger in Australia than anywhere else. "Slade Alive!" was played at every party I went to where there were Sharpies. When Slade toured with Status Quo in early '73, every gig was like a mass meeting of the Sharpie clans.... 

"Looking back, all of the fave Sharpie songs tended to be the simple, call-to-arms anthems – "Can The Can, " "Rebel Rebel, " "Get It On," "Metal Guru," "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am!)," "Rock'n'Roll Pt. 2," "Jean Genie," "Ballroom Blitz," "Liberate Rock," "All The Young Dudes," "Smokin' In The Boysroom," "Speed King," "Teenage Rampage," "Framed," "Get Down and Get With It," "Mama Weer All Crazee Now," "Cum on Feel the Noize."

"The Sharpies had a particular dance. They'd form small circles and bounce on their legs a bit whilst thumpin' their fists up and down in front of their bodies."

An older post on the Sharpies and Bogan Boogie, with comments from actual Aussies who witnessed the Down Under subculcha in real time. 

anti-theatricality and politricks round up - Speaker Blown Special Vol. 2

Tom Nichols at The Atlantic on how "the ongoing drama over electing a speaker of the House is not about governance. It’s about giving Republican voters the drama-filled reality show they voted for and want to see—even at the expense of the country."

"...  The disorder in the GOP caucus is not some accident or glitch triggered by a handful of reprobates, but rather a direct result of choices by voters. The House is a mess because enough Republican voters want it to be a mess..... Jordan and his colleagues... are poor leaders but good politicians. They deliver what their voters really want: show trials and passion plays, and, mostly, to see other people unsettled and angry. These citizens vote not for determined legislators with complicated plans—that stuff is just so boring—but for entertaining rogues who can liven up the Fox prime-time hours.

"Years ago, I thought that Republican voters would demand changes from the party if the GOP lost enough elections. But even losses don’t seem to matter in a party that is clearly more comfortable with performance art centered on imaginary grievances than with actual governing. The shenanigans of the past two weeks might even cost the Republicans control of the House in the next election—that’s one reason Jordan’s colleagues are trying to stop him—but that political collapse might not matter to right-wing voters. They’ll get another episode of their favorite show—and for them, maybe that’s enough."

guru versus guru

 

Heard this and suddenly thought maybe the title lodged in Marc Bolan's brain

After all, Tyrannosaurus Rex were a Underground band -  beloved and supported by Peel, who also  loved and supported Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. His playing of the record on Top Gear probably had something to do with Trout Mask Replica actually making the UK albums chart - it got to #21, would you believe!  (The next album Lick My Decals Off, Baby did even better - #20)

There's even a sort of once-removed connection - Beefheart was an old schoolfriend of Frank Zappa's and recorded for Zappa's label and was part of that whole LA freak scene. For quite a while the Mothers of Invention included Flo & Eddie - aka Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman -  the ex-Turtles who went down a sort of rock-parodic path not unlike Zappa's own mock-it-all tendencies. And it's Flo & Eddie of course who did those creamy near-hysteria backing vocals on "Hot Love", "Get It On" and many other T.Rex hits. 

Flo & Eddie star in Zappa's frightful film 200 Motels.

Completely unconnected, but there's also the ridiculously groovy second-division Krautrock Guru Guru. 

Not forgetting rave-era buffoon Guru Josh.

Briefly buoyed by a fad for live-performing keyboard whizzes on the rave scene (Adamski was the other one) 

Glam rock cop slight return

 

"You look like a Rolling Gnome"

Promo film created by the BBC to go with the "The Laughing Gnome", when it was rereleased in 1973, without David Bowie's consent, and became a #6 UK hit. 

The video uses an animation technique known as pixilation - I wonder if that came through associative-drift (gnome, pixie)

The belated success of "Laughing Gnome" is a bit like "Being Boiled" finally making the charts after The Human League's breakthrough. Or Adam and the Ants early tune "Young Parisians" going Top Ten after "Dog Eat Dog / Ant Music / Kings of the Wild Frontier". 

There is so much to enjoy about the fact that the first-time-around flop became a post-Ziggy smash.

First, it must have infuriated and embarrassed the newly supercool star, having his naff past dredged up.

Second, because it's a deliciously silly single. 

It slots into that category of novelty hits that you only ever get in the U.K.  Less like something originally made by a would-be pop star and more like a single done by a famous TV comedian (Charlie Drake's "Puckwudgie" immediately springs to mind - indeed it was a near-hit the previous year).  

Here's an opportunity to wheel out a cherished eccentric opinion: the first self-titled David Bowie is one of his most enjoyable records. It failed to achieve the goal of making him a star... but on its own terms, it's a complete success. 

It's certainly much better than the second David Bowie album that followed two years later in 1969.

So what are the best Bowie albums IMHO? 

1/ Low

2/ Hunky Dory

3/ Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

4/ Lodger 

5/ David Bowie (1967)

I won't volunteer my thoughts on the worst Bowie albums - too many to choose from!

But what are the most overrated? The ones that don't quite add up, or that have a few stunning things on them (often the singles), but are otherwise patchy or pretentious (but crucially, failed pretension)

1/ Station to Station 

2/ "Heroes"

3/ Diamond Dogs

4/Young Americans  

5/ The Man Who Sold The World 

6/ Let's Dance

7/ David Bowie (1969)

Here "overrated" refers specifically to the size of the gap between the reputation and the reality. As opposed to an actual judgement on the overall quality and where the record might finally stand in a peak-to-puke descending list of his works. 

(Acknowledging of course the sublime perfection within those albums, songs it would be impossible to overrate:  "Golden Years", "'Heroes'", "Secret Life of Arabia", "Rebel Rebel",  "Fame", "The Width of A Circle", "The Man Who Sold The World", "The Supermen", "Let's Dance", "Space Oddity" obviously...)

("Dodo" if we are counting the anniversary expanded edition of Diamond Dogs which we probably shouldn't)

As for those not mentioned in either chart.... 

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is, I s'pose,  objectively one of his best albums. But I've never really felt a feeling from it, as such. Apart from the title track. I mean, "Suffragette City" is a great tune but I don't have any sense of what it's about -  what it's for.   And there's a bit too much musical theater influence strewn through the album for my taste.

Aladdin Sane is an odd one - I've never really connected with it. The three-song run of title track / Drive-In / Panic  is pretty darn exciting. "The Jean Genie" is a thrilling rip-off of the Yardbirds - sonically, a throwback to Happenings Eight Years Time Ago. But it's beaten at its own game by The Sweet's "Blockbuster", which has more or less the same riff. 

Blackstar felt heroically daring and fearless and consummate at the time, but even then I suspected its stature would dim a bit in time... and the only thing that really lives with me is the title track, where he already sounds like a ghost. 

The Next Day - again, the temptation at the time to overestimate was overwhelming... but it's not lingered.

Pin-Ups is the definition of a curio, a curate's egg... compelling wrong in its over-mannered reiterations of the too-recent past, perhaps. I cannot imagine the circumstances in which I would want to play it from start to finish.

The remainder? 

Outside gets points for effort, if that ever cut any ice with listeners, which it doesn't.

I do genuinely love "Little Wonder" -  just for his earnest attempt to keep up with the cutting edge, the effort he made to make a decent fist of the junglizm. But the rest of Earthling...  And then there's his image at that time. 

Actually, in the video, he looks like...  not a gnome, but a goblin.

Funny thing, I never noticed there's a reference to "gnomes" in the opening verse: 

Stinky weather fat, shaky hands

Dopey morning doc, grumpy gnomes

anti-theatricality and politricks round up - Speaker blown Special

The term "main character energy" has fascinated me for a while - seems to speak to a theatricalization of life, but also people's desire to be heroic - the hero of their own narrative. And to be seen as heroic, or just seen. 

Here's an Atlantic commentary by John Hendrickson on this very notion, sparking off this week's chaos in the House of Representatives: "When 'Main Characters' Commandeer Congress"

Most of us grew up with the phrase main character as a synonym for a story’s protagonist—the person we root for. In recent years, this concept has been inverted. Main-character syndrome, the defining personality trait of our time, is not a compliment.... In 2023, a main character is often clueless and narcissistic, someone who views the world around them as a backdrop while they waltz through life. Politics has long been full of these kinds of main characters, but the Trump era brought them into the mainstream. Representative Lauren Boebert recently flouting theater norms (understatement of the year) during a Beetlejuice performance? Main character. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene doing well, anything? Main character. Main-character syndrome (also referred to as “main-character energy”) has spilled over into scores of congressional proceedings. Florida Representative Matt Gaetz is clearly the main character this week. Gaetz’s successful demolition of Speaker Kevin McCarthy was part of his larger demolition of the House of Representatives, which itself was part of … what, exactly? Why did this whole mess actually happen? Gaetz appeared to be seeking the spotlight—though, notably, not setting himself up to take McCarthy’s job....

Chaos ensued. Gaetz, Capitol Hill’s definitive new main character, got the headlines he craved.

Stephanie Ruhle, MSNBC - "The house converts itself into a place to hold performance hearings, a bunch of lawmakers who cannot make any laws" 

David Frum, in the The Atlantic - 

"For seven years, Republicans have protected and enabled Trump, the most corrupt and lawless president in American history. They crave to believe that Biden is as bad or worse, and they won’t be denied that craving by pesky details such as its crazy untruth. The next ringmaster will have to deliver a more exciting act to the most frenzied fans in the circus seats.

For the rest of the country, all of this threatens more crisis, more drama, more misgovernment, until one of two things happens. Either Republicans will overcome their taboo against reality and find some way to strike deals with their opponents, or voters in November 2024 will replace this dysfunctional majority that lives by lies with a functional majority that can work with facts."

More recent theatrical tropism unrelated to the eviction of HoR Speaker Kevin McCarthy. 

"Leader Hakeem Jeffries comes out swinging in his press conference now, saying the GOP impeachment inquiry against President Biden is, "an illegitimate inquiry, that is a kangaroo court, fishing expedition, & conspiracy theater, rolled into one."  (source unknown)

Ron Filipkowski: "The clear, coordinated, forceful messaging from Democrats on a government shutdown should be the simple truth - it is happening because the House GOP is dysfunctional, can’t get along with each other, can’t govern, and are simply irresponsible performance artists."

Steve Schmidt: "Whatever transpired at the Reagan Library wasn’t a presidential debate. It was a reality show for a niche audience of people in America who can’t stop watching political theater no matter how dishonest, banal and stupid it is." 

Tweeter Unknown - The reason why the crowds at Trump rallies listen to him telling all those crazy made up stories is because he's doing something fundamentally different than what normal politicians do at rallies. He's not outlining a policy agenda or conveying information about the real issues; he's doing a show. I know we say all the time that it's like he's doing a clown show but that's a bit wide of the mark; it's more like a type of fascist stand up comedy.

Unexpected use of these tropes outside the centre-left, as used by one of the worst histriones in American politics:

Lauren Boebert: “I’m done wasting time. I have 4 boys at home, I have a grandson at home. I would love to spend more time with them. I have put my life on hold to come here and provide results. I’m not here for the political show, the political theater.”

Detour from the usual shitshowmanship - a piece at New Statesman that takes the phrase "theater of war" literally, arguing in a piece entitled "The postmodern theatre of the Ukrainian counter-offensive", that there was "never a serious strategy for restoring Ukrainian sovereignty"

"As Kyiv’s counter-offensive grinds to a bloody halt against Russian defensive lines in Ukraine, observers and strategists are taking stock, evaluating what went right, what went wrong, and what comes next. Did the Ukrainians have the right kind of firepower, deployed in the right way? Did they apply the right doctrine? Did Nato planners misdirect the Ukrainians’ efforts? "In truth, such questions are beside the point. The hard but irrefutable conclusion is that while many Ukrainians have died, the counter-offensive did not take place. Parsing a staged media spectacle as if it was a meaningful military operation not only further confounds the truth but makes all the bloodshed even less meaningful than it already was. "Ukraine has become an intellectual battlefield as much as anything else. It’s a theatre in which that branch of political science known as realism has sought to defend its credibility against the liberals and neoconservatives who portray the battle in Ukraine as a battle for freedom and civilisation against tyranny and barbarism."

This chap whose name I can't be bothered to dredge up is using a Baudrillard-move - except he still believes in realists / realism / reality (whereas JB saw it all as merest vapour)

Finally, at the Atlantic, James Parker on the wrestling world and its relation to Trumpism, in a piece titled A Gory Amalgam of Truth and Spectacle

With the news last month that the Ultimate Fighting Championship (brand: authentic, highly skilled violence) has merged, in a deal worth billions upon billions, with World Wrestling Entertainment (brand: fabulously stylized, highly skilled violence), it appears to be time to reset the reality levels....

Trumpism has expressed and explored itself through both of these entities. And as they coalesce, and as Trumpism itself further coalesces, we are surely heading into—as the great New Hampshire metal band Scissorfight once put it—the “high tide of the big grotesque.” For a primer on the UFC side of things, you won’t do better than Michael Thomsen’s new book, Cage Kings: How an Unlikely Group of Moguls, Champions & Hustlers Transformed the UFC Into a $10 Billion Industry.... .... pro wrestling is deep. Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America, by Abraham Josephine Riesman, published earlier this year, will help you get your mind around it. And you need help. Pro wrestling is a thunderdome of images, the human comedy at near-celestial scale. Its lingo, its carny slang, expresses some kind of hierarchy of awareness, but where wrestling begins and where it ends, no one can say. If you’re a “mark,” you’re way down there: You’re taken in by the “kayfabe,” the fakery, and you think it’s all real. If you’re a “smart,” you’re higher up the great chain: You know what’s going on, you can tell a “work” (something prefabricated) from a “shoot” (an improvisation), and you can take an ironist’s or an aesthete’s pleasure in the pageantry and the bombast and the medieval moral drama. But is anybody really a mark? And is anybody really a smart? “When you start to think about it,” Riesman muses, “the existence of marks in great numbers starts to seem unlikely. It’s possible that the majority of wrestling fans may have always been smarts. It’s possible that the illusion at the heart of wrestling was not that fans believed wrestling was real, but that wrestlers believed that fans believed it.” (This is an irresistible idea: the puffed and strutting wrestlers, maintained in their dreamworld by the gallantry of the fans.).... Over both of these books, and both of these organizations, looms—I was going to write “the shadow of Trump,” but Trump has no shadow. No secret darkness, no buried awareness: Every inch of him is lit up. Better perhaps to say that the Trumpiness of all this is baked in. The story of the world as told by the UFC and WWE—it’s not exactly a liberal’s vision. Booming characters preen and dominate; nuance is banished. This is heavy-metal America.... High theater, high narrative, has merged with what Kipling called “the undoctored incident.” The kayfabe has merged with the fist in the face. Is some kind of grotesque UFC-WWE blend in the cards?

The next argumentative leap from this, I think would be to look at Jan. 6 - and whatever future organised violent chaos lies ahead of us - as theatre and fascism bleeding into each other. As WWE merged with UFC.

It was a cos-play coup and an actual "see if this works, why not, what we got to lose" Hail-Mary-pass attempted coup. Some of the participants imagined they were the good guys, the calvary; some knew they were the bad guys but didn't care, believed it was ride-or-die time, BAMN. Probably still others did really think of it as a spontaneous lark, sight-seeing combined with mass trespass.

It was largely all for show... except someone got shot dead, many others got badly injured (and a few died later) and quite possibly actual politicians might have been slaughtered, if things had gone a little differently with the timings and maneuverings.

A gory amalgam of truth and spectacle, indeed.

In real-time it made for gripping TV (like any horrific unfolding catastrophe news report - 9/11, Katrina) and retrospectively ditto, with the well-structured and dramatically narrativized Sorkin-esque pageant that was the 9/11 hearings in Congress.